Numbers Chapter 3 verse 39 Holy Bible

ASV Numbers 3:39

All that were numbered of the Levites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered at the commandment of Jehovah, by their families, all the males from a month old and upward, were twenty and two thousand.
read chapter 3 in ASV

BBE Numbers 3:39

All the Levites numbered by Moses and Aaron at the order of the Lord, all the males of one month old and over numbered in the order of their families, were twenty-two thousand.
read chapter 3 in BBE

DARBY Numbers 3:39

All that were numbered of the Levites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered at the commandment of Jehovah, according to their families, all the males from a month old and upward, were twenty-two thousand.
read chapter 3 in DARBY

KJV Numbers 3:39

All that were numbered of the Levites, which Moses and Aaron numbered at the commandment of the LORD, throughout their families, all the males from a month old and upward, were twenty and two thousand.
read chapter 3 in KJV

WBT Numbers 3:39

All that were numbered of the Levites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered at the commandment of the LORD, throughout their families, all the males from a month old and upward, were twenty and two thousand.
read chapter 3 in WBT

WEB Numbers 3:39

All who were numbered of the Levites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered at the commandment of Yahweh, by their families, all the males from a month old and upward, were twenty-two thousand.
read chapter 3 in WEB

YLT Numbers 3:39

All those numbered of the Levites whom Moses numbered -- Aaron also -- by the command of Jehovah, by their families, every male from a son of a month and upward, `are' two and twenty thousand.
read chapter 3 in YLT

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 39. - Twenty and two thousand. It is obvious that there is a discrepancy between this total and its three component numbers, which make 22,300. It is so obvious that it must have been innocent; no one deliberately falsifying or forging would have left so palpable a discrepancy on the face of the narrative. It may, therefore, have arisen from an error in transcription (the alteration of a single letter would suffice); or it may be due to the fact that, for some reason not stated, 300 were struck off the Levitical total for the purpose of this census. Such a reason was found by the Hebrew expositors, and has been accepted by some moderns, in the fact that the Levites were taken and counted instead of the first-born, and that, therefore, their own first-born would have to he excluded. There is nothing to be said against this explanation, except that no trace of it appears in a narrative otherwise very full and minute. The first-born of the Levites may have been just 300 (although the number is singularly small), and they may have been considered ineligible for the purpose of redeeming other first-born; but if so, why did not the sacred writer say so, instead of silently reducing the total of "all that were numbered of the Levites"?

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(39) And Aaron . . . --In the Hebrew text the word Aaron has certain marks over it, known as puncta extraordinaria, denoting that it is to be regarded as spurious or doubtful. It is omitted in the Samaritan and Syriac versions and in a few MSS. There appears. however, to be no sufficient reason for its rejection from the text.Twenty and two thousand.--The total of the three several items--viz., 7,500, 8,600, and 6,200--amounts to 22,300. It appears, however, from Numbers 3:46 that the total is correctly given as 22,000, inasmuch as the number of the firstborn, 22,273, exceeded that of the Levites by 273. It has been suggested that in Numbers 3:28 we should read ??? (shalosh), three, for ?? (shesh), six--i.e., 8,300 instead of 8,600; or, if the numbers were denoted, as it has been commonly supposed, by the letters of the alphabet, it is quite possible that one letter may have been substituted by the scribe for another. Some suppose that the three hundred were themselves firstborn sons, who had been born since the command to sanctify the firstborn, and that it is on this account that they were not included in the census. (See Bishop Wordsworth's Notes in loc., where the reasons which may be assigned for the extreme paucity of this tribe, as compared with the other tribes, are discussed.) The later census, which also included the children from a month old and upwards, shows but a very small increase in the number of this tribe, the number on that occasion amounting only to 23,000 (Numbers 26:62).